The joy and the sorrow of so much

At this moment in my life, there is a fullness. There is truly so much. So much work, as I juggle both an agency job and develop my therapy private practice, which is my heart’s work. The work of making a house a home, with every weekend a careful decision about which furniture to rebuild, which cardboard box to clear out, which space to declutter after 4 months in the Steel City and so many spaces still not fully defined in our little house on Deely Street. So much family, with two beautiful boys that love running and laughing and adventuring. Their mom-in-chief, Sarah, needing my support because, yes, it’s all so much.

There is a growing recognition that time is limited. The weeks of our lives are finite and that makes each day and each hour precious in a new way that I haven’t previously felt. There’s a book by Oliver Burkeman called “Four Thousand Weeks”, which is, yes, the average number of weeks in a human life. Somehow the idea of weeks feels more immediate than years, and no, I haven’t read the book yet. As I’m learning to accept, time is limited and not every book will have time to be read. There is a sad sweetness in that acknowledgement. There is a sorrow there and a joy as well.

Without a sense of limits, without the natural deadline of the passage of time, would the moments of living feel so exquisitely priceless? I like to think of this as the joy of scarcity, as I wrote about in another essay many moons ago. There is a grief with each passing day. I see photos of my son Finn at age 5, when our family had newly arrived to Japan. I watched a video in which he runs around an empty house, which later became our home for four years. His body is smaller, his voice is higher. There is so much possibility and hope in that moment of our lives. He’s a different Finn than the tall, lean 9-year old boy I see upon getting home each day now. I love current-day Finn. He is brilliant and funny and complex and he feels things so deeply, just like me. And I also dearly miss little Finn. What a complex feeling, isn’t it?

Maybe this is all the mirage of nostalgia and memory, but I miss these former moments that are no more. A version of our family which has ceased to exist, because rather than a trio, we are now a foursome – with little Miles in tow. And I love him so much as well, even as I mourn the ease of what life was like before a newborn (and now a toddler) had entered the scene. It’s hard to explain both the joy and the sadness of watching life change around you. I look in the mirror and often I see a face that looks remarkably like the reflection of 25 year-old me. And yet, around me, there is so much change. So much to do. So many memories yet to be born. And it’s overwhelming, honestly. The beauty of life. Chasing passions to honor your authentic self. Loving another person. All while knowing that we have these 4000 weeks to watch and to participate in this endless unfolding. Seeking out connections with new friends in a new neighborhood. Blowing on the embers of old friendships from high school.

There is so much.

I think of the struggles of emptiness, of hours that need filling when life is less full, perhaps in earlier chapters or later ones. There is a sorrow there, when we feel dissatisfied with the life around us, like an appetite that continues to hunger for connection or for meaningful work or for the joys of new adventures in this beautiful world which is, itself, always changing. Changing. I do not currently experience the ache of loneliness, which headlines tell me is a major source of suffering for millions of people. I am not plagued with boredom. There is not a struggle to fill the hours. Rather, there is the humble recognition that there are only 24 hours in the day, with each hour allocated. An hour doing an evening therapy session is one less hour to spend with my boys. An evening spent in my basement music studio with a coworker is an evening where I was less available to Sarah. Every minute counts these days.

I used to think that I would be miserable without an abundance of free time. I still do, in fact, value the concept of unscheduled time. Busyness is a poor substitute, in my experience, for a deeper contentment. A certain quality of stillness that is subtle, like when feeling the sun warm your skin and the breeze move through your hair at 3:40pm on a Tuesday afternoon. I often share the therapist dad joke with clients than rather than the cliché of “Don’t just sit there, do something!”, a meditative practice is rather the opposite: “don’t just do something … sit there.” And yet, I am realizing there is such a joy when you understand that the hours of the day do not contain the time necessary to explore each of your passions and loves. In these 24 hours, will I devote an hour to this practice of writing? Or will an hour be better served reading a book that I’ve delayed returning to? Or perhaps it would be best to let go of productive pursuits, and rather spend that time sitting on the floor of our living room – connecting with little Miles, who will not remain this age for long. Surely I will blink and he will be a 9-year-old boy like Finn is currently, and I will be wondering why I didn’t spend more time marveling at his sweet chirps and joyful communication, telling me “choo choo! Blue! BLUE! Ohhh eee ohh ee!” It makes the tears fall as I imagine this.

There is so much. So much to say. So much to encounter in this blink of a lifetime. There is much to remember as we move through these days, collecting moments like the finest of jewels. So much to appreciate as we offer our thanks to a world that gives us moments under a pink moon on a warm summer evening on a back porch. There is so much to be done, so many projects that can overwhelm us with anxiety and to-do lists. An old house can be a full-time job I am discovering. There is so much humanity in each person’s story. That’s why I love being a professional listener, it connects me to the Soul of the World, to borrow a phrase from the wonderful Francis Weller.

There is so much sadness in all the memories of aloneness and misunderstandings and the mistakes of our youth. There are so many words and ideas to share - my heart seizes up even in this moment, as I see the word count pass 1100. I have not written an essay in weeks and this feels GOOD right now. Writing and expressing myself nourishes my soul. And yet, time is limited. There are only so many hours, can I honor them each like the unique opportunities for living and laughing and learning that they are?

There are so many songs yet to sing. So much that will never be expressed. Don’t you sense the great sorrow and wonder of life in that? I am in awe after a 13-hour day, 8 hours in the office and 3 hours of therapy sessions - with energy STILL. For a night bike ride with Finn. A smoke on the back porch with Sarah. A strum of the guitar. A laugh over a show that I’ve been meaning to catch up on.

There is so much. And if I can hold room for that – the fire hydrant of joy that knocks you over, the despair in the moment of recognizing that there will be places you will never have the time to explore. If we can hold space for THAT – to gently invite in all the feelings and all the joys and all the sorrows, well, then perhaps that is enough.

John is a therapist, musician, and owner of Pivot Point Therapy - a private practice offering affordable individual and couples therapy for folks in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and California. Reach out for a free consultation using this link or drop him an email at john@pivotpointtherapy.com